He refused to do it again.
“Very well then,” he bit off, wrapping his hands around her upper arms and jerking her toward him, as he should have done from the start. “Let me show you.”
And he set his mouth to hers in a punishing kiss.
But as sensation stormed through him, lighting him up and making him yearn for things he knew better than to want, Tarek suspected that the real punishment was his, not hers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HISKISSWASELECTRIC.
Anya could feel it in every single inch of her body, tearing her up. Making her wonder how a person could function when they were nothing but pieces, scattered and torn and tossed to the wind. Burned alive, yet wanting nothing more than to keep burning.
She had half a mind to pull away. Slap him, maybe, not that she wanted to cause him pain. But she wanted towake him up.
To prove to him that he was wrong about this and she was right.
That not only did she love him, but he loved her, too.
But Tarek was kissing her, and it didn’t take much for her to forget that there was anything in the world but that.
All the things she’d been thinking all day seemed to course through her then, its own kind of power source. Until everything was something far hotter and brighter than electricity, and she could feel it inside her, twisting all around and then sinking down deep.
To where she would always run hot and soft for him. All for him.
“This is what we are,” he gritted out, in her ear. “This is what I want from you.”
She wanted to protest. She wanted to beat him away with her fists. Or her mind did, anyway.
Because her body wanted nothing more than to be close to him. To be devoured by him and to devour him in turn. To be wrapped around him, and then, gloriously, lifted up into his arms once more.
Where I belong, she couldn’t help but think.
No matter how many times he tried to tell her otherwise.
He carried her through the tent, one section after the next. She had the impression of salons made of tapestries, delicately carved furnishing, and wide wooden trunks. But she only knew they’d reached a bedroom when he laid her down on a wide, soft bed. Lanterns lit up the brightly patterned walls and made their own shapes out of shadows.
But all Anya could really focus on was Tarek.
His robes were ivory and gold again, but there was far more gold tonight. The light caught at it, making him gleam. He was resplendent and beautiful, powerful and pitiless, and she loved him so much and so hard it made her feel lightheaded.
That in no way made herlessmad at him.
Anya was panting as much from the force of the things she wanted to say to him as his deep, drugging kisses, and she pushed herself up on her elbows so she could glare at him with the full force of her displeasure.
But all he did was follow her down to the bed, making them both groan as their bodies came together. He wasted no time in getting his hands on her, up beneath skirts and then streaking up to her knees. He found her upper thighs, and took a moment to trace the place where her stockings were attached with clips. Then he moved on, finding the white-hot, molten truth of her. Of this.
Of them.
Tarek stroked her then, intent and deep. She fell back down into the soft embrace of bed, piled high with silk and linen and surrounded by the scent that rolled over her the way this man—herhusband, her King—did. She told herself to fight, but she was unable to do anything at all but lift her hips to take his clever fingers as they found their way into her slick, wet heat.
And she knew that she should be ashamed of this. That he could tell her there was nothing between them but sex, then prove it so easily. That she could claim she loved him and sex was the least of it, then succumb to his touch so wantonly.
But her hips lifted with abandon. Her back arched to give him better access. She was moaning out his name, even before he began to thrust his fingers deep inside her.
His other hand moved to her face, guiding her mouth to his all over again. Taking what he wanted. Showing her who she was.
Tarek kissed her, deep and hot, dark and demanding.